Pinterest Success (part 2): NOT recipes

Yesterday, I told you about my follow-through with recipes I've found on Pinterest. Today, we have some of the non-gastronomic successes I've had. Unfortunately, I can only post four...because it's that time of year when we don't want certain people to know that we are working on certain things because we want it to be a surprise. Apology accepted? Here we go.

Felt Dahlia Brooch (link)
via lots of people, but I found it at Pretty Dubs

I found this one long before I found Pinterest....but to be fair, I've since seen it floating around there, too. I've made several of these for people, and I really, really love the finished product. But. You have to be prepared to spend a lot of time cutting felt into very tiny pieces, and then even more time gluing those very tiny pieces. I thought it was worth it, but I have to be in the right mood. (Where "right mood" = alone.) 

The Crocodile Stitch (link)
via eventually everywhere, but starting at Lost and Found Lane

Oh boy--I've seen this pinned almost every day, and thought it was so darn pretty I had to try it. And try it, I did. And try, and try, and try. The truth of the matter is that I can't read a crochet pattern to save my life, which should have been a good indication to me that I would have a heck-of-a-time figuring this out. I credited the original Pinterest link above, but I ended up watching a lot of tutorials on YouTube to get this one down. (Side note: Watching crochet tutorials on YouTube is a singular experience.) Thankfully (for once), I'm terribly stubborn, and finally figured it out. One scarf later my shoulder sort of hurts, but it's just as pretty in person as it is in the picture. 

The Fruit Fly Trap (link)
via The Idea Room

This was another one that was pretty viral on Pinterest this summer (a.k.a. Fruit Fly Season.) Not much more to say about it than an unequivocal: IT WORKS. I used apple cider vinegar and whatever fruit I had on-hand. Though, I learned to lean toward foods that were "pickle-able," so nothing rotted. (Watermelon, apples, etc.) The good news is that we caught LOTS of fruit flies. The bad news is that we forgot about the trap and after a while (overnight) they figured out how to escape. Lesson learned: Empty the trap periodically.

Small Shirt = Cardigan (link)
via Easily Dunn

So. Here's the thing. I have this box at the bottom of our hall closet that holds some clothes. These clothes were worn at a time in my life when they once fit. To put it less delicately: breast feeding a baby for fourteen months lends itself well to a little bit of a wardrobe upgrade. Suffice it to say, I have more than a few shirts that were gathering dust. At the bottom of a closet. Fortuitously, I have an affinity for solid, long-sleeved shirts, which made this project super simple. And it's a little bit addicting. Okay, it's a lot addicting. And do you know what else? It's cathartic to take a pair of scissors to a shirt that's been mocking from the closet for a few years and make it useful again. I'd HIGHLY recommend this project. HIGHLY. (And it took....oh.....maybe 15 minutes.)